Posts Tagged ‘Mark Bartelstein’

July 31, 2013 · 8:42PM

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HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS — As vibrant as Toronto is as a sports market, as passionate as its fans are for whichever team is working that night, the feeling among some NBA players remains largely unchanged from what it was 18 years ago when the Raptors joined the league via expansion.

It’s that place up there, with the funky money, the customs checkpoints and defence that’s almost as tricky to spell as it is to play.

But the Air Canada Centre is Madison Square Garden or Staples Center as far as Alan Anderson is concerned. He learned the hard way the difference between basketball outposts and basketball outposts.

“Well, you go to China and to Italy and Russia and all those places, and you’ll see Toronto as the NBA,” Anderson said in a phone interview this week, after taking his physical and wrapping up paperwork on his two-year contract with the Brooklyn Nets.

He didn’t mention Croatia or Israel, or Tulsa, Albuquerque or Canton for that matter. But he didn’t need to. This NBA dream of his, a dream that nearly died overseas or grinding through the D-League for four seasons and nearly five years that could have been his basketball prime, is alive and well.

What’s dead is any shred of entitlement or arrogance or even self-pity that Anderson might have had about deserving better than what he got from 2007, when the Charlotte Bobcats were done with him, to March 2011 when the Raptors finally called.

The 6-foot-6 wing player from Minneapolis didn’t need much more humility, mind you, after going undrafted out of Michigan State in 2005, landing with Charlotte for a year and a fraction, then getting his passport stamped like Jason Bourne for the next several seasons. But the harder he pressed, the farther away he seemed to get. How often did he doubt he’d get another shot?

“Always,” Anderson said. “Once I left, I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, how long is it going to take me to get back? When am I getting back?’ And after a year goes by, two years go by…

“Actually, it was worse for me when I was thinking like that. That didn’t help me out at all. Once I started thinking about where I was at and winning a championship where I was at [in Croatia in 2009, in Spain in 2011], it started getting easier and I started seeing the NBA at the end of the tunnel.”

Anderson is forever indebted to former Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo and current head coach Dwane Casey for the call that finally came. In February 2011, he had come back from a completed season in China with hopes of a 10-day deal in Washington that never panned out. His agent Mark Bartelstein suggested that, beyond his individual workouts, Anderson head back to the D-League to keep his game sharp.

Shrewd move: He joined the Canton Charge, played eight games, averaged 21.5 points and shot 55 percent from the floor while helping them in a late playoff run and caught Toronto’s eye.

“He said to me, ‘Mark, just get me one more opportunity in the league. If you do, I’ll take advantage of it,’ “ Bartelstein said. “And that’s exactly what he did.”

Anderson stuck through two 10-day deals and the few days left in 2011-12 after that. He was back last season, averaging 10.7 points and 23 minutes off the bench, helping the Raptors to a 31-34 mark when he played [3-14 when he didn’t]. He scored 20 points or more eight times, including a 35-point performance against the Knicks on March 22, which might have been all the resume he needed to grab Brooklyn’s attention.

Now, Anderson is headed onto one of the league’s grandest stages, with the newly configured Nets battling the Knicks for New York and Atlantic Division supremacy. He’ll be a relatively anonymous role player on a roster now crammed with marquee names and proven veterans, eager to back up Paul Pierce and Joe Johnson as needed, flesh out a vastly improved Brooklyn bench and team with Kevin Garnett. Anderson first met Garnett back in Minnesota in 1997, when he was headed to De LaSalle High and Garnett was all of 21, working a summer camp.

“For someone growing up in the inner city, where I came from, we loved watching KG play and everything he brought,” said Anderson, who plays with a little on-court edge himself. “When I finally go to meet him, he was talking to me like we already knew each other as friends. That was big for me.”

So many years later, Anderson has a chance to help make Garnett’s twilight time special. He’s no kid himself –- Anderson will turn 31 in the preseason –- but his NBA miles are low and his adrenaline is spiking.

“I don’t think I do anything great, but I think I do everything pretty good,” said Anderson, whose minimum contract includes a player option for 2014-15. “I can spot-shoot, I can rebound, I defend, I can create, I can pass. Me being versatile, it can come down to me –- if we’re in a shooting slump or we need to get to the basket or need to get to the free-throw line, I think I’m capable of doing all of that.”

Anderson calls this gig a “blessing.” Bartelstein considers it a “wonderful story.”

“Alan’s a guy who just wanted desperately to get back to the NBA,” the agent said. “To be on a stage like he’s going to be on in Brooklyn, I’m so happy for the guy. A lot of people counted Alan out and thought his NBA career was over. So, to come back from playing internationally and rebuilding his career to levels that a lot of people didn’t think he could do, it speaks volumes about his perseverance and how hard he’s worked.”

November 1, 2012 · 12:42AM

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CHICAGO – Taj Gibson tried to answer the first question with a straight face, and failed miserably. Four or five words in, his smile broke through the clouds and spread ear to ear.

From there, the Chicago Bulls forward’s expression told the tale. While he dressed after is team’s 93-87 victory over Sacramento Wednesday at United Center, his agent, Mark Bartelstein, was upstairs with Bulls management. The business at hand: Crossing T’s and dotting I’s on a four-year contract extension worth $38 million, about 50 minutes before the NBA deadline for such deals.

“This is where I want to be,” Gibson said. “Both sides just came together and got it done.”

He added: “I didn’t want to go through [the season without a deal]. To turn down, that’s a lot of money. Especially for the security. I’m relieved.”

Four hours earlier, Gibson looked despondent. The gap in the negotiations was too great, and the fourth-year forward from USC doubted whether it would get done at all. It nagged at him a little as he played — four blocked shots but modest otherwise, with four points and five rebounds in 19 minutes. Then the horn blew, the Bulls won and Gibson knew that the 11 p.m. CT cutoff was fast approaching. (more…)

October 31, 2012 · 10:49AM

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HANG TIME CHICAGO – Maybe, if the Chicago Bulls get a deal done with forward Taj Gibson close to tipoff of their 2012-13 season opener against Sacramento, they can have him sign it at midcourt. Imagine the Opening Night drama of a darkened arena, save for one spotlight on Gibson as he puts pen to paper on the back of Benny The Bull.

Maybe the contract extension talks that still had the player and his team several million dollars apart goes right to the witching hour (midnight ET / 11 p.m. CT) before they’re complete. This is, after all, Halloween.

Or maybe the Bulls and Gibson, their valuable and still-budding big man off the bench, don’t come to terms at all. That would throw yet another looming question over a team already playing under a cloud of uncertainty over Derrick Rose‘s comeback from knee surgery.

Chicago has three options with Gibson. Once the deadline for fourth-year players such as himself, Stephen Curry, Jrue Holiday, Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans and a few others, Gibson and the Bulls will be down to one:

Option 2: Hit the deadline without a deal. Gibson would become a restricted free agent in July and the Bulls would be able to match any offer sheets that came his way. This is like signing your guy now, only letting some general manager other than Gar Forman negotiate the price.

Option 3: Go all James Harden on Gibson and his agent, Mark Bartelstein.

June 8, 2012 · 10:35AM

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HANG TIME PLAYOFF HEADQUARTERS – If he has his way, Taj Gibson will wear a Chicago Bulls uniform for years to come.

While many of his contemporaries have created ways to exit their particular situations around the league, the Bulls’ power forward is looking to make sure he maintains his with a contract extension. Gibson will be a restricted free agent at the end of next season but has no interest in testing those waters.

“Really, it doesn’t matter (when it happens),” Gibson said. “I told (general manager) Gar (Forman) and (vice president John Paxson) how committed I am to just being with the Bulls. It’s not a thought in my head to leave Chicago because I love playing for the Bulls.

“I love wearing the Bulls logo across my chest. So that’s the last thing I’m thinking about right now. Right now, I’m just thinking about next year. Just come in and figure out how I can try to help the team better and just let the chips fall in place. A lot of guys tend to worry about that stuff, but I know I have a good agent in Mark Bartelstein and I have a lot of faith in what he does and I know I have a lot of faith in the Bulls organization so I’m just relaxing and practicing.

“I believe my future is here. Either mid-July or next year (for an extension), just have to be patient and just wait and see.”

They’ve met in small groups, larger groups and committees. There have been conference calls, secret ones and not-so-secret alike, news conferences and now threats of the union decertifying and still no sign of the one thing we need … a new collective bargaining agreement!

Substantive talks are one thing and we’d welcome anything in that neighborhood going on this weekend.

But showing up to a Manhattan hotel and sticking around just long enough to tell each other that nothing has changed is not what we’d consider progress.

And we’re not the only ones exhausted by the process …

***

Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe captures the mood of many with his column that places the current state of affairs in the proper historical context:

It is very annoying for those of us who still love the sport of professional basketball to see what its custodians are currently doing to harm it. I wish it were as easy to decipher as the NFL madness. It was pretty easy to outfit the combatants in that one.

White Hats: Players

Black Hats: Owners

The NFL lockout was about very rich guys, all making a profit from their teams, wanting more. The players asked for nothing. Status quo was fine with them. There was a $9 billion pie, and there was ample opportunity for everyone to get a nice slice.

The NBA pie is worth “only’’ approximately $4 billion, and, unlike the NFL, not everyone makes a profit. That is clear. But just who is losing what remains unclear, because history teaches us that in these matters, professional sports teams make statements concerning their finances that, while perhaps not outright lies, are, shall we say, substantial stretches of the truth. Make that enormous, stupendous, astonishing stretches of the truth.

October 4, 2011 · 8:07AM

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HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – We’ve all known for a while now that the first week of October would serve as a crucial week in these NBA labor talks.

No progress before then and the opening days of this month could be a make-or-break time for both sides, not to mention the millions of us around the world biting our nails hoping that our first love (the NBA) would come back to us … and soon.

It’s hard to categorize the things that have gone on in recent days as true progress. Sure, there have been meetings. Ideas have been exchanged. But no one is talking in a way that suggests that even the loose framework of a deal is under way.

We won’t know exactly what that means until the sides emerge from that meeting room in New York and explain themselves after yet another day of exhausting conversation about how to close the gap between what the owners want and the players are willing to give.

But if the developments of the past 24 hours are any indication, everyone seems to be digging in and the clock continues to tick …

• With the National Basketball Players’ Association having already offered to drop the players’ portion of basketball-related income from 57 percent to 52 percent, the agents implore players to insist on “no further reduction of the BRI received by the players. A source close to the union told SI.com recently that any agreed-upon deal in which the players received 51 percent could possibly be ratified but would likely lead to the ousting of Billy Hunter as the NBPA’s executive director, so this is in line with those parameters.

• A system in which the current structure of the Bird and mid-level exceptions remains the same.

• No reduction in salary from existing levels for maximum contract players.

• No changes in unrestricted free agency and improvements on restricted free agency.

• “Refuse any deal that excludes players from the explosive growth of the NBA.” Owners’ proposals that have started with players receiving 46 percent of the BRI have included drastic declines in their percentage of the pie in the later years of the agreement.

September 14, 2011 · 11:20AM

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HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Stunning is the only way to describe the mood shift here at the hideout in the past 24 hours.

From giddy anticipation for potential progress that could come from the first full bargaining session since the lockout began to the depths of despair in the aftermath of said meeting producing nothing of the sort. I tried to warn folks. No deal would be struck. The two sides were probably not going to move off of their initial positions. They did not.

The owners and players (and their representatives) are as far apart right now as they were when this entire ordeal began. It’s as if the calendar hasn’t moved one bit since July 1.

NBA commissioner David Stern and union executive director Billy Hunter might even agree on that. There is no next bargaining session scheduled. Not even a brief get together for coffee. Nothing.

You can choose sides all you want, but as far as these eyes can see the only real losers in this entire affair are those of us who love the game and want to see it played as soon as possible.

Still, we have to gauge the reactions from all sides and examine the fine points of each and every argument. More importantly, we have to sort through the rubble now and figure out exactly where we go from here. Because optimism is no longer a part of this equation …

The Union’s Next Test … Decertification

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports: When [Hunter] goes to Las Vegas on Wednesday for the most important players meeting of his tenure as executive director, does he find a coup awaiting him?

“Now Billy has to go to Las Vegas with nothing to bring the players,” a prominent agent told Yahoo! Sports on Tuesday night.

“He’s chosen a particular path, and there hasn’t been any progress on that path. There was all this false optimism in the last week about how the league was going to come with a new proposal that he could take back to the players, and they came with nothing. Stern wants to stall, and stall until the players start missing paychecks.

“Billy was hoping that he could keep the players engaged, excited that a deal was coming. There was all that rhetoric of good feelings, and today was the day that Stern was going to come with a proposal. He was relying on the fact that Stern would negotiate in good faith with him, that he didn’t want to lose games. He thought that Stern would blink, start to negotiate. He was relying on the fact Stern didn’t want to hurt the game, and he was wrong.”

Yes, there had to be a pit in Hunter’s stomach. Three hours waiting for the owners to debate among themselves, big markets wanting to cut a deal, and small markets willing to lose games – lose the season – to get guaranteed profits and maybe a better chance to chase championships.

There’s a big labor meeting in Las Vegas on Thursday, and Hunter is competing for the hearts and minds of his rank-and-file players. He’s already lost the top agents, who are laying the groundwork for a coup, sources told Yahoo! Sports. The decision to make a move on Hunter could come as soon as this week, agents privately said.

August 24, 2010 · 10:33AM

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A high-placed team executive once told this Hang Time substitute teacher that a center typically doesn’t reach his prime until 30.

Looks like Michael Jordan reached on Kwame Brown again.

Almost a decade after Jordan, then the Wizards president, selected Brown, then a high school star, with the first pick of the draft, they’ve renewed vows in Charlotte. Could there be a more unlikely reunion this side of Mel Gibson and Robyn?

Jordan and Brown were forever linked even before news broke that the Bobcats were signing the 28-year-old journeyman to a one-year contract for $1.3 million. This bond began in 2001 and would go on to define the failed MJ Era in Washington.

“A really interesting story. Instead of running away from the shadow of Michael Jordan, he kind of embraced it.”

Brown was the first high school player taken No. 1 and Jordan’s first draft pick as an executive. Brown has since been labeled one of the biggest No. 1 busts in history, joining an infamous list that includes Joe Barry Carroll, LaRue Martin, Michael Olowokandi, Pervis Ellison and Kent Benson.

Brown’s biggest NBA contribution is being part of the blockbuster trade that sent Pau Gasol from Memphis to Los Angeles to ignite the Lakers’ latest title run. The Bobcats are Brown’s fifth team. He played sparingly the last two years in Detroit, and owns career averages of just 6.7 points and 5.4 rebounds.

But the Bobcats were looking for depth at center after trading Tyson Chandler to Dallas earlier this summer. Jordan, the first former player to own a team, went back to a familiar well to fill that need.

There probably wasn’t much interest in Brown out there, which is telling in a league short of quality big men. But Brown is also opening up some old wounds by teaming up with Jordan again, though the expectations aren’t nearly what they were nine years ago.

July 15, 2010 · 3:57PM

Luther Head‘s agent Mark Bartelstein told NBA.com that they’re investigating legal options in response to New Orleans contending the guard didn’t pass a physical this week. The Hornets then rescinded a contract offer made to Head.

“We’re going to look at the remedies we have because I know that Luther would have no problem passing a physical with any other team,” Bartelstein said today. “And it’s my responsibility to protect my client when I believe he’s been wronged.”

Bartelstein is still gathering information and wasn’t sure what the next step would be at this point, or if the union or league office would be involved.

The Hornets released the following statement today from team president Hugh Weber:

“We can appreciate Mark’s passion for his clients and understand his disappointment. It is our procedure for a player to undergo a thorough physical examination before a contract can be finalized. After consulting with our medical team, the Hornets organization feels that it is not in our best interest to move forward with the signing.”

Bartelstein said a two-year agreement negotiated by former general manager Jeff Bower was in place, but the Hornets backed out after Bower and the team parted ways Tuesday.

July 6, 2010 · 11:08AM

Roger Mason Jr., one of the free agent steals of two summers ago, could be closing in on a new deal by the end of the week, league sources told NBA.com. Mason spent the last two seasons in San Antonio.

“We’re going through it day by day,” Mason’s agent Mark Bartelstein said Tuesday. “We have to go through the process. There’s a domino factor to all of this.”

Bartelstein added that a number of teams are interested in the shooting guard who enjoyed a career season in 2008-09 before Mason struggled with his shot last season and fell out of Gregg Popovich‘s rotation. Portland, Miami, Chicago and New York are among those who have contacted the six-year veteran. The Spurs have not.

The “domino factor” Bartelstein referred gets back to those top-tier free agents — LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, etc. Once they decide where they’re going, roster and salary slots open up. With the Heat, Bulls and Knicks, especially, Mason is could be seen as cost-effective proven vet to complement a few new high-dollar teammates.

Mason is looking for a chance to contribute again. He played a major role with the Spurs in 2008-09, setting career highs for scoring (11.8), minutes (30.4), 3-point field-goal percentage (42.1) and starts (71). Mason took a step back last season, mainly due to injuries and inconsistency plus the return of Manu Ginobili.

“It started with me in the playoffs last year,” Mason said shortly after this past season ended. “That was the first time I had gotten benched by Pop. It’s kinda lasted a while.

“It hasn’t been ideal, but I think I’ve continued to improve as a player, which is weird because most times if you numbers look the way mine do from one year to the next, you think that you’re a worse player. But I actually feel like I’m a better player.”

Mason feels he can be the long-range threat he was that first year in San Antonio again, and a more complete player. He shot just 33.3 percent from beyond the arc last season and averaged 6.3 points.

Still, the Spurs two-year investment of $7.3 million appears to have paid off after Mason out-played his deal the first year. Mason, 29, is looking for another multi-year deal.

On the eve of free agency last week, Mason tweeted (MoneyMase) the following:

“How quickly people forget that I was considered the steal of free agency last year. A talented team, and injuries, got in the way this year.”